The first was the-man-without-the-last-name Kurt's eyes.

While those around his were seeing crisp white walls and trying to remember what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle was, he was back in the laundry room, staring into deep eyes the color of...he couldn't say what color his eyes were, actually. First they were blue, then green, and gray, swirling together a moment before one took precedence over the other, and he had felt his heart give a thud as they made contact with his. The word cyan crossed his mind, but he just as quickly discarded it. It would take years of staring into those beautiful eyes to find a single word to describe them.

That thought ran right to the second thing Blaine was caught on.

"It's my girlfriend."

Three little innocuous words that somehow managed to tear him into pieces. Which was ridiculous, really, considering he'd only been in the other boy's presence for a grand total of five minutes before he'd said them, and that was completely...well, ridiculous. Why in the world should he care so much? So the man was straight. Big deal? It's not like he'd have given Blaine the time of day is he wasn't. Right?

"Right," Blaine said aloud and then winced as a chorus of "Shhhh" erupted around him.

He'd almost forgotten where he was. He sighed and glanced around the room, his gaze landing on the clock. And then he froze.

A million curse words bubbled to his lips, but he locked them down and started scribbling answers furiously as the clock ticked away the last ten minutes of class.

~ + ~ + ~ + ~

As a general rule, Kurt was not a morning person. It was with that thought in mind that he hadn't scheduled any of his classes to start before ten am. On Tuesdays, however, there was a lab at half past seven for his chem class, and, not wanting to conflict with any of Brittany's classes, as the other two offered labs would, he had decided he could handle getting up early one day a week.

Not to say he wasn't up early anyway, but there was a difference between 'eyes open' awake and 'are you seriously asking me to concentrate on some lame theory I'm never going to use in the real world before my morning coffee?' awake. So, from the start, it was pretty obvious to Kurt that he wouldn't be having a good morning.

What wasn't obvious was the fact that he wouldn't be making his lab at all, nor would he be making his journalism class at nine-thirty, or drawing at eleven, or...well, it was only eleven-thirty, so there was a possibility that he might make his writing course at one. From the state of things, however, he highly doubted it.

The state of things being as such:

His brother Finn had called at six in the morning--six!--to tell him that Rachel had disappeared. Just vanished. Poof. And he wondered if she had contacted him. It obviously never occurred to him to wonder at a more reasonable hour, like, after the sun had risen, just as an example. Of course with the two-hour time difference from Montana to New York, it wasn't out of line to think that his own eight am time time was an acceptable one to call. But after three months, you'd think the man would have gotten used to it.

Still, Rachel's disappearance was odd, especially considering she was supposedly mid-rehearsal for a student-run production of Rent with her fellow NYADA comrades that was due to open in two weeks, just after her finals for the semester were over. And she was playing Maureen, for god's sake. Apparently, though, the perfectly-suited role didn't attract her enough to stay. Not that those vultures--that is, students in her school didn't have someone as an understudy, he presumed, but still.

And Finn had no clue what had made her leave. She'd been happy, school was great, they were finally planning their wedding together.

And then she was gone, and Kurt was woken from the precious little sleep he had gotten to hear about it, and just...

That was exhibit A.

Exhibit B was what had kept Kurt awake despite his tiredness.

Exhibit B was what had kept Kurt up so late in the first place with the laundry.

Exhibit B was what made Kurt miss all his classes that day.

Exhibit B was a three-year-old little girl that went by the name of Sunny.